Rohit Arya, the man accused of taking 17 children hostage in Mumbai’s Powai area on Thursday, has died after being injured in an exchange of gunfire with police.
According to the police, Arya shot at the police using an air gun during a rescue operation, prompting the police to return one round of fire.
The bullet hit Arya on the right side of his chest and he died during treatment. His post-mortem is being conducted at the JJ hospital.
The dramatic confrontation took place inside a small film studio called RA Studios, where Arya had lured a group of children for what he described as an “audition”. Police say the children, all between the ages of 8 and 14, were held hostage for about two hours before being rescued unharmed.
Police said a team from Powai Police Station received a distress call around 1:45 pm and arrived swiftly at the scene. The negotiations began immediately, but he refused to release the children. When he threatened to harm them, the police team conducted a forced entry through the bathroom and secured all 17 children safely.
Before the incident, Arya had released a video in which he said he chose hostage-taking “instead of dying by suicide”.
“I am Rohit Arya. Instead of dying by suicide, I have made a plan and am holding some children hostage here,” he said, listing what he described as “simple demands, moral demands, ethical demands, and a few questions.” He warned that “the slightest wrong move from you will trigger me” and threatened to set the place on fire, adding that he did not seek money and was “not a terrorist”.
“I want simple conversations, and that’s why I’ve taken these children hostage. I’ve held them hostage as part of a plan. If I live, I’ll do it; if I die, someone else will, but it will definitely happen because the slightest wrong move from you will trigger me to set this whole place on fire and die in it,” Arya said in the video.
Police have since recovered the air gun and some chemical containers from the scene, which investigators believe he used to threaten officers. The children were invited for a web series audition at RA Studios, located on the ground floor of a residential building in Powai.
He had previously alleged that the department owed him payment for a sanitation campaign called the PLC Sanitation Monitor Project, launched under the Chief Minister’s My School, Beautiful School campaign. Arya claimed the project, part of his ‘Let’s Change’ campaign begun in 2013, aimed to make schoolchildren “ambassadors of cleanliness”.
He alleged that the department had sanctioned Rs 2 crore for his work but had not paid him since January 2024. Arya had gone on hunger strike twice that year and accused officials of sidelining him from the programme despite personal assurances from then Education Minister Deepak Kesarkar.
According to Arya, Kesarkar had issued him two cheques of Rs 7 lakh and Rs 8 lakh as personal assistance, promising more later — a promise Arya claimed was never fulfilled.
Maharashtra Education Secretary Ranjit Singh Deol, however, clarified there was no agreement to pay Rohit Arya Rs 2 crore for the project. “He volunteered for the work and was awarded a certificate for his work. Subsequently, he was in discussions with the government to implement the ‘My Shala, Sundar Shala’ programme, but that failed to materialise. The Maharashtra government does not owe Rohit Arya any dues,” Deol said.